Twisted World
by a bullet away from paradise
Summary: Post Resident Evil 4 speculation story.
1. Prologue

_Finally… it was over._

A sigh of welcome relief blew through President Graham's lips as he let loose the anxiety that had proliferated throughout his body over the past two weeks. He tried to let all of the memories surrounding Ashley's disappearance go as he rose from the tall-backed, black leather desk chair that crowned the center of his main telecommunications office. Her abduction, the cult behind it all, none of it mattered anymore...

_Everything is fine now._

For the past eighteen hours or so he had been sitting in that chair, watching the many holographic screens that lined the office's back wall, communicating back and forth between the multiple agents working on the case, and trying to keep up with the events surrounding Ashley's retrieval. It was tiresome work to be sure, sitting in that stuffy room for the better part of the day wearing a heavy black suit he didn't get the chance to take off, but to see the events unfolding before his eyes, to know everything that was going on _for himself_, he wouldn't trade it for a weeklong vacation at a Tahitian luxury resort. _God knows you needed one too..._

Slowly he worked his way to his residential quarters, nursing a headache that was born from a mix of fatigue, anxiety, and prolonged exposure to computer screens. Being the president was infinitely more tolling than he had anticipated. Streaks of grey had already began to highlight his blonde locks, fine lines now traced his eyes, and if he didn't know better, he would say his mental health was slipping as well... goddamn headache.

_Presidents really do age faster, don't they?_

He could understand why, but the dermatologist would have to wait. Right now, he had more important matters to attend to: press conferences were to be held, a welcome party was to be prepared...

... and a trip to Starbucks was to be arranged. There is now way in hell he could do this all without a massive amount of caffeine.


	2. Chapter 1

Once again, the hoarse moan of his creaky apartment door was all that greeted government agent Leon S. Kennedy as he weakly staggered in after hours of working his self-prescribed night shift of scouring the government archives for information on what he thought was the former pharmaceutical enterprise "Umbrella Incorporated." Upon returning to the states, Leon was unsurprisingly assigned to resume his duties of protecting President Graham's family as Ashley's personal bodyguard. He hadn't expected anything less - it was what he was trained to do after all, but something about the whole affair bothered him. Why did Ashley Graham need to be personally escorted by someone with his level of training? _She's the President's daughter... not the Palestinian Ambassador; it doesn't take six years of highly intensive and specialized training to protect someone whose most dire daily activities consist of taming an unruly head of hair or not being able to find "those shoes" in brown_. In fact, the only time Leon had actually protected Ashley since the los Illuminados affair was when he intercepted a collision between her and a rather sizable stretch of oak parquet; no matter how hard she tried, Ashley Graham would _never_ be able to walk in stilettos.

It wasn't that Leon minded his job, not too many people can say they are paid to follow someone around the mall all day after all. However, his sense of duty would not give him peace regarding his new line of work. Although Osmund Saddler's baleful manipulation of citizens of pueblo was certainly one of the most shocking things Leon had ever beheld, it did not hold a finger to seeing his thought-to-be-dead colleague Jack Krauser living, breathing...

_... and working for Umbrella, Leon reminded himself._

With his knowledge of Umbrella's apparent rebirth, Leon found it difficult to waste his days away playing babysitter. He knew he was doing a service to his country by protecting the President's family, but he found it unbearable to sit on the sidelines as they continued their inhumane research with newfound fervor. He knew he could have been doing so much more...

_And losing even more sleep? Don't wanna think about that right now, thank you very much._

Not to be bothered with taking off his jacket or removing his shoes, Leon stumbled into the living room and crashed face-first on the couch. Although he had only been at it for two weeks, this overtime routine of his was beginning to take its toll: dark circles colored the bottoms of his eyes, a dull pain constantly lingered between his temples, and the once somewhat-tidy apartment had fallen into complete disarray. Empty Dunkin' Donuts coffee cups and pizza boxes littered his living space along side the mountain of newspaper clippings and copies of federal archives he had amassed since his return to the States. His couch was lined with stray papers and -

_- and he was too goddamn tired to do anything about it. Who needs to be able to see their carpet anyway?_

Leon tossed yet another sizable file - the fruit of that night's labor - onto the heap. Usually upon arriving home he would immediately begin to peel through the many pages of his newest find, but tonight either fatigue or intimidation prevented him from doing so; it was one damn thick son-of-a-bitch. He knew why it was so thick too. Supposedly it was the records on the details surrounding Umbrella's federal suspension. Within its pulpy depths lay every piece of evidence used to back-up the neutralization of Umbrella: confiscated research data, experimentation schedules, future projects, the works. It was truly a great discovery, certainly better than the tax records and patents that constituted the greater portion of his findings until then... and one that demanded his immediate attention more than all the others that had come before it. But Leon knew it was probably best to read it while he was in a livelier state_, wouldn't want to fall asleep mid-read and drool on it or something._

Satisfied with this decision, he finally managed to pry his limp body from the overly comfortable couch. He would have stayed there if his stomach had just shut up, but apparently it wasn't satisfied with the Sesame-Asian salad Ashley insisted they split for lunch fourteen hours ago. He shuffled across the living room and into the kitchen. He hadn't really had the chance to go grocery shopping since his return to the states, and had consequently been living off delivery or take out, if he had the energy to go pick it up. He seriously considered his usual option, but all of the usual places were closed by now...

_and after two weeks of Mongolian beef and Papa John's... ugh, there has to be something else to eat in this goddamn place._

A cursory inspection of the kitchen cupboards turned up nothing, forcing him to brave the depths of the fridge. If the lovely pizza box pile that crowned his living room floor said anything about Leon's food storage habits, one must imagine the state of his refrigerator: that package of no-longer-orange cheese, the green marbled bread, the ice cream he forgot to put in the freez- _ice cream!_

Score!

Leon pounced on the enticing pint, wrestling it free from the snug grip of the refrigerator door. So the ice cream wasn't _icy_ anymore, Leon didn't give a shit; that liquid Ben and Jerry's was screaming his name and now he didn't even need a spoon to eat it. And with as much liveliness as a dead-tired, overworked, twenty-seven year old man could muster, he sauntered back to the living room and plopped onto the all too cozy couch once more. Upon arrival he finally kicked off his shoes and took off his jacket, nonchalantly throwing it on Mount-I-Don't-Feel-Like-Reading-You-Now. He would deal with all those government files later, right now he had ice cream to drink.

Let us be clear, Leon wasn't usually forced to choose between such unappetizing dinner options. In fact, he used to fancy himself as quite the organized and tidy man, at least more so than your average bachelor. But since he had spent so little time in his apartment over the past three months, it is no small wonder why he left his foods' expiration dates unchecked. It was a month ago when Ashley was kidnapped and for the two successive weeks he had been flying around Europe, chasing down false leads and falling upon dead ends. Well, that is until he finally found himself in Pueblo, Spain.

Whoever knew that such a small little town would have just a profound affect upon his life? It couldn't have been home to more than two thousand people, and yet it managed to be the home one of the most pernicious biohazardous organisms of the past half a century, the foothold of a religiously fundamental terrorist organization... and where Leon found out that the rumors were, in fact, true.

_She was working for Wesker after all..._

Ada Wong, everyone's favorite slash-smash-grab-'n-dash-wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am red-clad bitch. For six years he had tried to suppress her sometimes less-than-savory character from his mind, but all attempts thus far had failed. Wherever he went, a thin red trail would follow: a slight flash of crimson glittered in the corner of his eye, the cold click of her gun echoed in his ear, and the sensation of her limp, dead body supported by his grasp still lingered in his arms. Back in Raccoon, he wasn't bothered that she had been an agent, or that she had lied to him about her reasons for being there. He was too blinded by icy elegance of her demeanor to notice how often she abandoned him and too possessed by the satin purr of her voice resounding in his hear to notice the silence when she ignored him.

He really wished that he would just forget about her already. She herself said that she wasn't capable of caring for anyone, and he knew first hand that she would shoot him in a heartbeat if he was ever between her and her objective. But with every flash of red that breached his glance and every click that penetrated his ear, it became ever more difficult to shake away the one lasting feeling he had for that woman: hope. Hope that someday he would once again cross paths with that tall twenty-something who had come to Raccoon in search of her missing boyfriend, the woman he took a bullet for, the soul who gave herself up so that he could live on in her stead... the body that died in his arms.

_Uh-huh... sure. As if someday she will just appear at your doorstep, no longer working for Wesker and having abandoned her less-than-righteous past. And after you kiss and make up you could buy her a ring, have a few kids, and live happily ever after, just like a goddamn fairy t-_

_Holy Christ!_

Leon shot up from his couch and looked out the window, staring at the now sunlit sky framed within its borders. _Since when was the sun up at three in the morning_? Perplexed, he shot a glance at the clock, barely prying open the lids of his exhausted eyes enough to make out the four digits on the display.

_1...0...3...7..._

_10:37! Shit, shit, SHIT!_

He was late for work... really, _really_ late.

He couldn't imagine how pissed Ashley must have been right then and as much as he didn't want to, he was going to find out the hard way. Not wanting to waste another second, he hotfooted it to his bedroom, scattering the large collection of coffee cups, newspaper clippings, and pizza boxes in the process. He crashed open his bedroom door upon reaching the end of the hall and made a mad dash for the closet. He hoped that Ashley wouldn't mind if he didn't -

_OW! What the hell..._

Something sharp embedded in his carpet had scraped the bottom of his foot, painfully drawing red blood from its sole. Leon took a dainty step back and squatted down to have a closer look, but much to his surprise the floor looked relatively normal, well, except for the fact that it...glittered. Befuddled, he lifted his eyes to scan the stretch of carpet not in the immediate vicinity and his sight was met by a large array of shattered glass scattered across the floor, reflecting the light diffused through his newly broken window.

_What the..._

_Who..._

Someone broke into his apartment, that much was obvious, but how or why was anyone's guess. His apartment building was located in a well-lit and respectable part of town where break-ins were few and far between - and he was on the tenth floor, not exactly the ideal location for your average, run-of-the-mill break in; clearly, he was targeted. Leon turned back and searched his apartment over to see if anything had been stolen, but everything was still there, right down to the empty ice cream pint he had apparently dropped on the floor.

And then Leon saw it. On top of all the files there was a single piece of folded white paper, and Leon, despite his debilitating fatigue, knew that he personally had not removed it from the archive library. Leon slowly inched closer to the mysterious sheet, gradually making his way past the all-to-familiar debris that lined the floor. But as he came within the last few steps, the curiosity that had grown in anticipation regarding its contents had vanished. There he saw it, and although it was somewhat obscured by the folded paper that covered it, that telltale red mark was still there. Leon seized the fragile note, pulling its fibers taut as he read its contents. How Ada managed to break into his apartment did not concern him, it would not be the first time she baffled him afterall - _but she had better have a good reason for doing it._

"Leon,

Sorry, but I can't let you have that one.

- Ada

P.S. Your refrigerator is revolting."

_Ada, you goddamn..._

The file was gone; she took the goddamn file he worked his ass off to get last night and to top it off, she knew that he had taken it along with all of the others since the very beginning. He was being watched, and by her no less. She knew everything... _Wesker_ knew everything...

_Why the hell did I give up smoking?_


End file.
